Mesonoxian Seance
by PhaerynTao
Summary: Beyond Birthday pays one last visit to L. "Maybe if you're lucky you can come live with us in Paradise." BxL, for Keem.


a/n: Warnings first. Hard lime, yaoi, and mind fuckery. This is a shamefully belated Christmas present for Keem, author of such legendary stories like Dynamism, Cupidity, Heterodox, and my personal favorite, the Charlatans of Burbank Avenue. Amazing writer, and a beautifully funny and endearing personality. She makes my material look like the lyrics to a fucking Raffi song.

Anyways, read plix. And sorry for any errors; I'll get them as time goes on.

Don't own Death Note at all whatsoever.

~0~

Seldom did the peace and quiet of the night ever fail to bring him tranquility. Outside the window of the large studio, resembling an auditorium in which ballet dancers shared smokes before their recitals, creeper entwined and latched onto the dirty glass pane, giving an eerie uncomfortable glow to the moon, high in the sky. Yet L's eyes held immaculate focus on the screen of his laptop, never even flicking to the side to observe his staid surroundings. The sinking feeling in his gut was foreign, an unwelcome stranger weaving a dissatisfied and uneasy knot in the vat of his intestines. How peculiar, he thought offhandedly. He never experienced such feelings while he was looking over evidence. His mind was conditioned, completely jaded to the sight of blood and gruesome slashing, to what horrid games someone inflicted with a squalid insanity could wind, to the lifeless eyes of men, women, children, infants...all was documented, all was looked over objectively. These were people he didn't know, would never know, had no connection with, and would never truly care about. All he saw was the brownish mahogany hue of dead blood cells smeared on the pretty coral walls, and the remnants of bodies whose souls were stolen in the blink of an eye. He grew used to the fragility of life. Longevity was never a given for anyone, not even the greatest detective to ever live.

But...

Something told him it wasn't the evidence, although quite disgusting, that was bothering him.

Breaking his habitual undying focus, he turned to look out the window, hollowed eyes gazing unfathomably out the window at the moon. It didn't even seem white tonight. In fact, and he had to blink several times to make sure his eyesight wasn't fooling him, squeezing them tightly and opening them wider and wider each time. The moon had adopted a pink hue. Like a drop of blood had tainted its radiant purity. He had never read about this kind of phenomenon in any science textbook, and he knew that his eyes were slow and hesitant to play tricks like this on him.

Turning away from the omen written across the craters of the moon, L attempted to lock the observation of the ominous sky and gentle needles pricking the most tender parts of his skin away. He drew in a deep breath through his nose, filling his brain with every picture and crime report he was ever given, overwhelming himself the deductive labyrinths and possible dead ends he could hit while sleuthing. He was determined to drown out this foreboding sensation, this _distraction_, because he couldn't linger on it. There was not an ounce of time. His time was eaten up by the works of a now global offender who had gained the name of Kira,. On any other day, even if he was booked with a dozen rape kit results from the victims of a serial sexual attacker, or staring at the laptop screen four inches away upon the scooped-out intestines of an eight year old boy, he would have at least dedicated a measly five minutes to wondering why he was trying to suppress a panic attack. This was an entirely different matter. This..._Kira _was unceasingly fascinating, and evoked emotions of aggression and a competitive spirit that few cases could instill within him. Kira's genius, elusiveness, and absolute _merciless _conduct made L clench his fists until they were even paler, and yet...sigh in relief that there was at least one person out in the haze of humanity who possessed an intellect akin to his own.

"_Seems you've found another genius to satisfy your selfishness, L."_

Reaching up and gripping a handful of his hair, the possibility that he was overworking himself flew through his mind. It made the most sense; sane, mentally healthy people didn't suddenly hear voices within their skulls.

"_Look up, my lovely little simpleton."_

Such a faraway voice, dripping in an acrimony that humanity even with all of its collective sins never deserved the displeasure to know. It was horrendously familiar as well, a quick realization that sent millions of insects climbing up the bony staircase of his skeleton. It had to be a night of witchcraft, but glancing at his laptop's digital clock and reading the time to be 3:45 in the morning, he didn't even have moronic superstitions to blame the supernatural circumstances on.

Toes, long, gnarled, and black with what looked like frostbite, crawled over the top of his monitor. Gripping the plastic, the decaying foot pushed the computer closed. His heart in his throat, blocking air, beating frantically, L looked into a reflection of himself. No, not himself...perhaps how he'd look if he had burned in hell.

"_That's right,"_ the ghoul said, drawing back its charred limb. _"Take a break from your work. You must be exhausted."_

It stood, towering over him in a ghostly fog of omnipotent blackness. The edges of its form were blurred and hauntingly ethereal. L was still caught between believing this creature was actually in front of him, and thinking he had snapped. But his masterful poker face hardly ever faltered, even amidst the fingers of God and Satan interfering with the physical world, and he barely appeared nonplussed by the thing's presence. Shrouded by a veil of devilish iniquity, he could not see its features. But that voice, _that voice!_ Who owned that gruesome familiar voice?

It chuckled, a rotten sound. And then the switch clicked on inside L's tired brain. Impossible, he thought gravely.

"_People like us are taught to trust our minds far too much. Trust your _eyes _for once." _

The probability of this happening was .01 percent.

"_That's right...let the realization wash over that...wonderful body of yours."_

This entire situation was nearly improbable, and yet here it was, happening before his eyes. Although he would never show it, L was genuinely surprised. Perhaps a little scared as well. So he closed his eyes briefly. Counted to three.

One...

"_Taking your eyes off of your opponent? Tsk tsk...so unwise..."_

Two...

"_I do hope you're not ignoring me, L." _

Three. He opened them, and found himself staring unabashedly into the eyes of his deceased understudy, B. B for Backup in the good old days, but now he had carved out his new alias, Beyond Birthday, or BB, designing the fat seeping letters with blood stained Wara Ningyo dolls. And now look at him. He went from an obsessively studious young man, to a serial killer, to a straight jacketed prisoner whose face was burnt to a crisp, to a victim of Kira's purging of evil. And it grated on his nerves to even consider it, but this case was probably the only instance that L agreed with Kira's choice.

He actually felt something disperse within him, a ball of wadded up anxiety untangle and disappear, once he looked over the crime report and corpse of his twin adversary, who had died of a heart attack in his prison cell. The wad was back. And so was L's guard, thick and impenetrable as ever. B was a formidable foe indeed, but he was always a backup; nothing more. Exhaling silently, he stared wintry at B's ghost, exuding an expression as cold as the vile spirit's manifestation.

"It's obvious I'm hallucinating. It seems I must sleep soon."

B scoffed, kicking his foot childishly into the air. _"You? Sleep?! Outrageous. And I assure you, I am no delusion. Need I remind you that your mind is sharper the less you leave yourself vulnerable?" _He paused, producing an abrupt and wicked smile. _"Then again, you're alright _quite _vulnerable tonight, aren't you L?"_

His whimsical tone, his playful impish voice that could turn from sickly sweet to pure dripping sin in an instant.

L blinked, feigning being unimpressed. "If you're real, then why don't you come out of the shadows and face me."

Another pause. Longer this time. B sure knew how to strike fear into ordinary people, but L wanted him to step it up a notch. Whether the presence of his spirit before him was a figment of his imagination or not, L was not a slave to the more eccentric reaches of his mind. He used his psyche, not the other way around. And if by some chance this _was _Beyond's ghost...betraying his die hard habit of having a clear and concise mode of thinking would be giving the killer the luxury of seeing him weak.

"_...Alright." _B said simply, lowly. The floorboard creaked a bit as the ghoul leaned forward, revealing a face that most people have nightmares about, or induce the nightmares themselves. Skin slightly tarnished, as if hardened like a worthless diamond in the pits of Hades, half of his face was rigid and hideously scarred, the flesh a hue of faint pink, thick paths cut into the skin that twined and keeled. L was thankful it was only half of the burnt face, at least. He had seen B's corpse in his jail cell after his heart attack, and looking at the body's face was more than enough gore. The other half was what really interested him though; while one half was monstrous, the other was just like his own. It was as if someone had grafted half of his own face onto a burn victim in attempt to give them a sense of normalcy. It was smooth, even more flawless than his own blemish-free skin, the only difference being that there were two crimson colored spheres in the eye sockets.

"Why are you here tonight, Beyond?"

"_Just paying a visit." _B grinned, displaying two rows of pointed chiseled teeth. _"Oh...death is _amazing_. And God is so gracious, just like in the stories. In fact, if you see Mello, tell him I ate my own hands for poking so much fun at his faith."_

Beyond crouched, mimicking L's position, his ghostly body a mass of meandering smoke bright against the obscure unlit room. Like a maimed animal he scuffled closer to his supposedly superior opponent, earning not a flinch from L. Deeply, B targeted a bloody gaze at him, his eyes swirling in malice, two crystal balls withholding a red weave of scarlet fumes, fumes which foretold a very grim future. However, L remained unaltered. Red was an intense color indeed, but like everything, it was dimmed into pathetic nothingness in the presence of black.

"You actually expect me to believe someone like you has known the presence of God?" L asked dismissively.

"_Yes, I do!_ _You see...He likes to play all sorts of different games. Fun games, scary games, manipulative games...I find I quite like Him."_

"Then why don't you return to him and play your games while I continue my work?" L replied staidly.

B pretended to be thwarted. _"Oh L...you think it'll be that easy to get rid of me? I actually have business to attend to." _

"Then attend to it, B." L nearly hissed.

Blinking bruised eyelids slowly over half lidded orbs of contempt, B smiled disgustingly.

"_As you wish."_

In an instant L felt his wrists being gripped by an icy grasp, one colder than his own freezing skin and stronger than he ever felt before. Beyond launched himself above him, pinning his arms in a vice clench to his sides, squeezing his thighs around L's legs and keeping him from moving. Naturally his first instinct was to try and break free. L struggled and fought as much as he could, but despite his wispy appearance having Beyond's ghost on top of him was like having weights tied to his muscles. He tried to knee Beyond in the crotch when all else failed, but his leg simply flew up into the smoke of B's effigy. A furrowed look was born upon L's face, and B laughed as his perplexed expression.

"_That's the fantastic part of being dead. I cant be hurt or touched unless I wish it. You cant cause me pain, L. You cant! I'm invincible!" _

Lips parted in anxiety, L stared up into the face of the young man who was once his understudy, his successor second in line after A. How insane he had became, how utterly mentally amok he had been in life was suddenly hitting him for the first time. He seldom focused on the boy, barely batted an eyelash when the boy obsessively modeled himself after him, detail by detail. What he missed out on as an adolescent, though, he gained undoubtedly when he walked the path of a psychotic killer.

"Whether or not you're a figment of my awry imagination, I must get back to work." L said coldly, allowing the tiniest of smirks to creep into the curves of his thin colorless lips.

There was once a time when B would have darkened in an instant at such dismissive words. Tonight was not the case. The intensity of B's eyes died a little, leaving in favor of a flustered heated gaze, as if L had stumbled over the exact words and subject the spirit had wanted. The stare radiated danger like a beacon. But L stayed calm, his reserve as cutthroat as B's insanity. The ice in his aura worked desperately to suppress his dead successor's flames, so powerful and enraptured in phoenix fire drenched in blood, transcendent even through the wall of the afterlife. L was secretly baffled, amazed, shaken from his reverie of newspaper articles hinting on the most minor pieces of evidence, of prison cells dripping in drained bodily fluids, of the name _Kira _written on the inside of his skull in sickly elegant Gothic letters, akin to the single character of his own name.

"_What must you find so important that you have to shoo away an old friend?"_

"Don't play dumb, Beyond. You already know that Kira occupies all of my time, and by that logic, you should also know he outstrips you easily in his skills as a criminal."

His perceptive mind caught an uncomfortable twitch clenching on the unburned side of B's face, and was satisfied that he had struck a nerve. And then, rejoice.

"_You know me so well for never giving me an inkling of acknowledgement." _B said smoothly, like thick churned butter.

"_You're so pathetically stupid. Only dealing with your surroundings accordingly. Shamefully reactive are your actions."_

"Naomi Misora." L interjected abruptly.

B narrowed his eyes at the mention of the woman. _That _woman, the woman who foiled what would have been a perfect way to outwit his adversary. Such an admittedly beautiful way to show the one he copied himself after; symbolically, physically, he showed L the flames of his nature, the destruction and disembodied evil that brewed within his gut, finally bubbling over when he accepted that he was losing his mind.

"She was my ace in the hole. I knew without her I would never be able to beat you. So I sent her after you, whether she knew it or not. She's a woman of intellect, and I knew she would unravel everything eventually."

Sitting up on his elbows, zeroing in on B's grotesque visage, his voice a savage murmur.

"I am L, Backup. And far more proactive than you can ever imagine."

B's palm flew up and gripped L's forehead, slamming his skull back down against the wood floor. He balled the same hand into a fist that flew down next to L's head, painfully trapping some of the raven hair between his hand and and the floorboard. B looked livid, breathing heavily through a deformed nose. And in a bipolar instant, the anger dissipated.

"_Oh L..." _The fist unclenched, and long tendril fingers like pale cold snakes gently entangled themselves in the obsidian strands. L wanted to struggle again, but he refrained. B was more dangerous when his demeanor was syrupy sweet.

B lowered his head so that a few mere inches separated two pairs of decrepit lips. One pair dead and hard, the other chapped and scarred.

In a single oozing whisper, _"I didn't come to fight."_

A lightheaded haze settled over L's brain, but that didn't keep the imagery in front of his eyes from closing in on him, and he could feel the icy breath of the spirit's exhale smelling faintly of strawberry jam. His disgust was imminent, and yet as B's lips made contact with his own, the cold supernal frost of his sinful feathery kiss ignited a fevered spark that warmed his entire body. But he couldn't let such a noticeable surrender show on his face, no matter how insane the circumstances turn. With an 'mmf!' he pulled away, averting his eyes from a pleasantly surprised B, who's thin pale pink mouth brought forth a furtive open-mouthed smirk.

"_L is embarrassed."_ Down turned blood red eyes, pretending to be sympathetic. The creature wasn't capable of sympathy. Not anymore. B sighed, running a jagged thumb along the side of L's face, becoming unnaturally mournful; nothing but another nugget of deceit. _"I understand...I was scared when I felt something for the first time as well."_

"I, feel, _NOTHING._" L nearly spat.

No facial response, and the smile didn't falter.

"_I remember watching myself in the mirror, making funny faces, pretending it was you. I made a face like this..." _Sad. _"Like this..." _Angry.

"_And my favorite...this." _B parted his lips, dropped his jaw slightly, tightly shutting his eyes. The tiniest of abrasive sighs escaped his dry throat. In an instant he snapped back to his same old manically amused expression. _"I always wondered what you'd look like, with _that _kind of face. You know what that kind of face means, don't you?" _

L only glared at him. He had began to tremble quite a while ago, but only now was it becoming uncontrollable, and the tension to suppress the shivers tightened painfully in his chest. B reached down between the both of them, lightly resting his palm between the detective's legs.

B smiled almost innocently._"What you'd look like...here."_

"Beyond...stop it. Stop it right now." L said shakily, and goodness he hated showing such evident weakness in his voice but the hand resting below his belt was perversive and demonic...he could hardly bear it. A person so despicable could couldn't logically make him this warm. From head to tow, he felt hot water scalding his insides. B pressed his palm harder into his jeans and shook his head gently, the greasy butter-sweet smile never fading.

"_You have no idea what I went through to get to you. I had your genius, I took your face. I set myself on fire, felt my very skin melt right off my bones." _

There was the sound of a zipper. A freezing hand crept inside and touched him delicately. L's urge to vomit rivaled his very unwelcome, very disturbing rousing. B then grabbed him hard, squeezing his flesh mercilessly.

"_You're mine for tonight. Just tonight, though. Because He will want me back soon. But rest assured, I know how to make anyone's insides squirm, no matter how much time I'm given with them."_

"You expect me to succumb to this?" L said breathlessly. The battle of wills was about to begin.

A feathery finger ran along his length, and B blinked softly, giving an expertly crafted rendition of pure ardor, of a possessive love that had obviously infected the whole of his being.

"_...Yes, L. I do."_

B moved his hand steadily against him. L emitted a punctured gasp, full of needles, full of his revealed fear. Nearly every nerve ending in his body pleaded with him to find some way to escape, to get away, to salvage his sanity from his beast of baleful lore.

"_This is what I've waited for..." _B lamented softly. _"You, here, under me, obeying me..."_

L could feel the smoothness of the ghost's hand so divinely against his length, the uncreased paper-thin hand with the fingerprints completely burned off. How long would the ghost put him through this, how long would he have to forfeit his physical freedom? Underneath the dead serial killer, he was trying to be reduced to nothing. But even with this humiliation coursing through his veins like sweet slow poison, he couldn't concede to anything the monster forced upon him. His movements were so bold, cutting him up inside and dissecting his innards, performing an inhumane autopsy to discover just what truly made him tick. And yet, his hand was surreptitious, skillful, much like that of a surgeon's. No matter how soft those fingertips on the flesh of his length felt, no matter how much he was manipulated, no matter how hard B worked to draw that flavored moan out of his mouth...it would not happen. It couldn't. This was a battle, a battle of sheer will. And L _would _win.

He couldn't escape this one. B was an impossibly solid brick wall, unable to be hurt, and yet there he was, stroking him pitilessly, watching his face for the slightest reaction, occasionally reaching over with his other hand and sweeping a thumb across L's face to wipe away the freezing cold beads of sweat. Suddenly, B stopped. His hand abandoned L's arousal. Two ruby eyes glinting in fascination and amusement glanced up, both impressed and annoyed that there was no inquiry to what he was doing or why he had stopped. He gripped the sides of L's frayed jeans, and abruptly tugged them downwards with ease from their permanent looseness around L's bony hips. He was hot to the touch, blood rushing down to the lower half of his body and encasing him in a spiraling raiment of forbidden unwanted lust. He hated the way he felt, hated the heat that lit his skin aflame, hated the ghoulish face trying to draw the blistering sounds from his mouth. B lowered his mouth near his thighs, hot breath, icy in its demeanor, a puff of hair escaping his bruised lips and covering his hardened length in an unholy swathe of desire. It was disgusting to know that such a creature from the womb of the underworld was making him experience these profane sensations, but moths settled in his stomach despite his revulsion, fluttering violently and making his heart beat a million times a second. He could hear the blood rushing in his ear, his thoughts barely conceivable. And all of his propriety nearly melted away the instant B's glacial lips, so disgustingly and ostensibly real, touched the head of his length. In a single motion his mouth enveloped him, taking nearly all of his length until it hit the back of his throat from which all his repellent attributes were most conspicuous. L nearly used the opportunity to scramble away, but B dug his nails deep into the pale skin of his hips, causing him to lightly gasp in pain. A sliding wet sensation surrounded the embedded nails, sinking deeper and causing them to gush delicate torrents of blood from the wounds.

"_I challenge you to stop thinking for a change." _B whispered, a glorious wretched smile lacing his words. _"All you have to do is feel...think of it as my personal gift to you for being my one and only idol."_

And down he sank again, that wet mouth doing its unholy wicked work, trying its best to coax some form of willful submission out of his apparent plaything. The liquid in L's stomach churned up and down, side to side, around and around as he watched B attempt to make him give in. The male genitalia may not care who was performing the deed, but L's sense of self and personal space rejected everything about the encounter. It would be a notable task, but all he had to do was bite his tongue and not let the monster conceptualize that anything it was doing to him was giving him pleasure. But even he would admit that this would be difficult. Take away the face and the less than favorable past of their relationship and he could have easily turned to Jello.

B's pace increased, his nails trembling while sunk into L's skin, thriving off of his dirty act without even touching himself in return. He glanced upward in to L's face, finding nothing. But the coil in L's stomach was gyrating tighter and tighter, and he was unsure that he would be able to conceal his reaction when the time came to let go. B's hand left its bloody spot, and placed itself at the base of L's member, squeezing it painfully tight.

"_This should do it..." _B mused calmly. A long red tongue snaked out from between cracked pale lips and massaged the tip, his hand pumping at a frenzied rate, desperately trying to draw out his adversary's surrender in the sweet form of a contorted face and pathetic moan.

L's visibly granitic face masked a multitude of panic. He was very close to coming, far too close for comfort, and the knowledge that he _would _come eventually at the hands of such an obscene bastard made him want to void his stomach. The spongy tongue, the vice grip, the hot steaming breath, the motions, the _movements_...it was all too much. The precipice was nearing, and he didn't know if he'd be able to keep himself from crying out when he stumbled off the edge. He had never been cornered like this before; he had never had nearly all of his boundaries and walls shattered with so much ease and in so little time. He never felt this hot, this sweaty, this frightened, this angry, this revolted. But he couldn't cry out. He couldn't cry out. He couldn't...

_Cry out_.

His eyes watered, squeezing tightly as if suddenly sewn shut. The inevitable lightning bolt shot through his spine and down the red and blue chords of all his limbs as his essence manifested, a foul symbol of relinquishment. Muscles tense, hard like rock, L opened his eyes to see B sitting up, slowly licking his lips and the tips of his fingers.

"_You taste delightful." _B said, though looking forlorn. _"...but it's a shame I didn't hear you cry out."_

L blinked, and exhaled. So he hadn't lost the battle after all. Coming at all was enough of a downfall, but at least he was spared from voicing the pleasure the ghost made bloom within him.

"_It would've been quite the treat to hear that annoyingly monotonous voice break like a pubescent boy." _He chuckled childishly, his skeletal shoulders bouncing up and down as he laughed.

L wrenched himself out of B's grasp, but now that he had the taste of his opponent nicely coating the inside of his mouth, B made no lunge to struggle and simply let him go. Violently pulling his jeans back up to his gaunt hips, L sank to his knees with his back turned to the murderer, back hunched and posture directed more inward than ever. Shame, nausea, and defeat washed over him like a black torrid wave intent on drowning him. A slimy hand, cold as the wind in the night, softly touched his back. It took all of his strength not to shrink away from such a putrid contact. B again laughed softly; he could feel the muscles tense under his fingers.

"_Goodness...if you could barely handle me, what makes you think you can handle this Kira?"_

In a flash, L turned and grabbed B up by the cuff of his tattered shirt. "Don't you ever, _ever _mention Kira to me. You don't deserve to say his name."

"_Kira." _B repeated like a mockingbird, smiling delicately. _"'Killer', no?" _

L narrowed his eyes like a viper ready to strike, but his legendary restraint, although teetering gracelessly, simply could not give out completely. He put him down slowly, pushing him away. Everything about this confrontation was condemned by every single one of his senses. He could hardly stand it. He wished that B would just leave. Leave and never thieve the chance to manipulate his vulnerability again.

B's head turned upward, like a sound in the distance made him perk his ears. Looking oddly disappointed, he sighed in regret.

"_I have to go now." _

"Just like that?" L growled.

"_I'd never disobey Him." _

"You can't disobey someone who hasn't even let you into their kingdom."

"_Do you think you're going to heaven, L?" _

"I can't bring myself to care about something so trivial at this point."

B gave a bullfrog stare, eyes slowly winding upwards, staring amusedly at the space right above L's head. _"It's not as trivial as you think." _

He stood, leaving L a heap on the floor. _"I'll put in a good word for you. Maybe if you're lucky you can come live with us in Paradise." _

Shuffling like a wounded spider to the window, he gripped the edges and opened it. Legs, thin rail pipes, lifted an emaciated torso up onto the sill, and perched like a gargoyle drunk from the shadows.

"_The struggle between you and Kira will be most entertaining indeed. I'll be watching." _

Gone. Flew out the window, an escape artist with a hunter's gleam. L was left feeling robbed of his dignity, and in turn was given a million cryptic messages to sort through. With Kira on the loose, L had little time to decipher all of B's ridiculous subtleties, but he couldn't help but feel an undying chill buried under his skin, unable to be removed. He had the distinct feeling that B's purpose was to tell him that he would die in the near future, but it wasn't death itself that frightened him. Say the grave robber was speaking a glimmer of the truth, perhaps he would be laid to rest in his coffin, and his spirit would be sent off to live in this 'paradise', where B could rob him over and over again, grinding his hips against his and calling it the Holy Grail.

L had never feared death before.

Readopting his sedated ruse, he slid back over to his computer and opened the monitor. Back to newspapers, back to crime scenes. Back to a morbid glare of a white screen upon his pale face. Kira had to be stopped. He immersed himself once again in the world of transgression, only this time, a scarlet gaze with a questionable lucidity gazed up and down his brain stem. Death now held a feeling, a label, and the word 'paradise' was tainted. Failure was not an option. He won his battles. All of them. Always.


End file.
